Megacenters: The Suburban Boom

As `Ring Cities` Rise, So Do Questions

June 08, 1986|By John McCarron, who covers urban affairs for The Tribune.

New plans for sports-based hotel and office megacenters on the suburban fringe put Chicago in the forefront of a nationwide boom that is raising new doubts over the fate of older cities and their inner-ring suburbs.

One urbanist claims the far-flung complexes ``are fast becoming the nation`s dominant urban form of the late 20th Century.``

They are also reviving questions that haven`t been widely asked here since the go-go era of suburban sprawl that ended with the 1973 Arab oil embargo:

-- Shouldn`t new development follow existing rail, water and sewer lines rather than leap-frog to distant farmland where schools and waste-treatment plants must be built?

-- And if the metropolitan population is not expected to grow much beyond 7 million, doesn`t every new job and apartment on the fringe mean one less for a West Side or a Westchester?

Experts say the revived outward push is being fueled by ler interest rates, the return of cheap gasoline and an influx of investment capital now that the energy boom has fizzled in the Southwest.

But this time around, the charge is being led by the mixed-use megacenter rather than the haphazard sprawl of single-purpose residential subdivisions or shopping malls.

According to professor Louis Masotti, longtime suburb-watcher at Northwestern University`s Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research, the mixed-use form is a safer bet for today`s developer.

If offices are leased slowly, Masotti said, developers can get by with rents from stores and apartments, or vice-versa. Megacenters also give developers and their architects a chance to create a unified living and working environment. No outsider can build a discount store next to the racquet club.

The trend toward fringe megacenters may be nationwide, experts say, but political unrest at City Hall may be pushing Chicago into the vanguard.

``Money hates uncertainty,`` said George Sternlieb, director of the Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers University. He has tracked the explosive growth of such exurban megacenters as Las Colinas outside Dallas, Tyson`s Corner outside Washington, D.C., and Irvine Spectrum outside Los Angeles.

``Ring cities,`` as Sternlieb calls them, are booming everywhere, but

``Council Wars`` may intensify the phenomenon here.

Sternlieb said that the death of the 1992 World`s Fair at the hands of quarreling politicians and citizen-activists did not go unnoticed by developers around the country. Not knowing what new tax or zoning change to expect from a government at war with itself, high rollers opt for the relative safety of enclaves like Oak Brook, Schaumburg`s Woodfield, Itasca`s Hamilton Lakes or the office parks along Du Page County`s high-technology corridor.

``It becomes easier to buy farmland,`` Sternlieb said, ``and sweet-talk the nearest suburb into providing the services you need in return for the taxes you`ll produce.``

The marriage of the megacenter and the stadium complex is also part of a nationwide trend.

Chicago Bears President Michael McCaskey, who proposes a new football stadium to anchor a larger complex on what is now a dairy farm in north central Du Page County, concedes he was influenced by similar projects under construction outside Miami and Dallas.

But the newest wrinkle in sporting megacenters was unveiled last week by Richard Duchossois, the millionaire owner of fire-gutted Arlington Park Race Track.

If the Illinois legislature lowers taxes on the horse racing industry, Duchossois promises to build a complete ``equestrian community`` in Lake County near the Wisconsin border.

Under his two-phase plan, a second office-hotel-residential megacenter would be built in Arlington Heights on the 325-acre site to be vacated by the old track.

Both plans were designed by the architectural giant Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and both are state-of-the-art megacenters.

The Arlington Heights project would contain a high-tech business and office complex, a cultural and performing arts center, ``Lincoln Park-style`` apartments and an upscale shopping center--all potentially linked by a Disneyland-type aerial tramway.

The new track complex in Lake County was laid out by Skidmore in collaboration with Lane Kendig, the former director of planning for Lake County now in private practice.